Violent games, violent kids: The evidence

The American Psychological Society is currently getting a bunch of coverage for the latest report from Craig A. Anderson et al. The APSs summary of the report, The Influence of Media Violence on Youth, says it all:

Research on violent television and films, video games, and music reveals unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and long-term contexts.

As this is official I guess we can put the media effects debate to bed now.

Comments

[Jeff Freeman]

1.

*whew*

Glad that's settled.

[Bart]

2.

The evidence is clearest within the most extensively researched domain, television and film violence. The growing body of video-game research yields essentially the same conclusions.

I guess the good news is that this study doesn't focus solely on video games, and makes it absolutely clear that television and film play a large role in this issue. I've seen too many studies focusing just on games, ignoring other forms of media.
-B

[Bruce Boston]

3.

[I've seen too many studies focusing just on games, ignoring other forms of media.]

The only thing more difficult than being unfairly singled out is being correctly lumped together with 3 other industires with very good PR teams. In fact, if the four culpable parties are television, movies, music and games, my guess is that the industry with the weakest PR team, will take the economic hit.

-bruce

[Cory Ondrejka]

4.

Bruce> . . .my guess is that the industry with the weakest PR team, will take the economic hit.

Sadly, games are also the industry that is least important to "adults" which makes it a double whammy, although hopefully they'll focus on music.

[Bruce Boston]

5.

Cory> games are also the industry that is least important to "adults"

Except for the evidence that suggests that Nintendo's Gameboy is one of America's favorite babysitters. In that sense, after re-reading the paper, I think it does a fairly good job at putting much of the onus on the parents.

For example;

"In surveys of children and their parents, about two thirds of children named violent games as their favorites; only about one third of parents were able to correctly name their child’s favorite game, and 70% of the time that parents were incorrect, children described their favorite game as violent (Funk, Flores,Buchman, & Germann, 1999)."

"However, if parents watch TV with their children and say nothing about the violent content, children report higher than normal aggressive attitudes (Nathanson, 1999)."

"Media-violence exposure is only one risk factor underlying aggression and violence. It may be the least expensive risk factor to modify—it costs little to choose nonviolent forms of entertainment for oneself or one’s children. However, the troubling truth is that violent media are entering the home and inviting active participation of even very young children—often with little parental supervision."

Its actually nice to this as a core issue in the paper.

-bruce

[Cory Ondrejka]

6.

Bruce,
Not sure what you thought I meant, but I'm sorry that I wasn't more clear. My ironic -- or at least sardonic -- use of "adults" wasn't targeting the paper (which I agree did an excellent job) or its authors, but instead was focused on the adults who are policy makers, law makers, and voters. Since game players are under-represented in those groups (compared to TV and movie viewers, as I said games and musics may be close), they will be less sympathetic to games even before the less effective game industry PR kicks in. So, while I happen to agree that pointing out parental responsibility is very important, it wasn't the point of my post.

[Bruce Boston]

7.

Looks like the legislation has already started.

http://www.gamedev.net/info/news/FullStory.asp?StoryID=6072

-bruce

[Malorie]

8.

I am doing a research paper for my senior english class and need some sources by the 15th. i would appreciate if any of yousent these sites to my email to help me out a little. Thanx and God Bless!

[Thabor]

9.

The name Anderson is a very familiar one. By my recollection he has been pushing to link video games to violence for years. He captialized on Columbine among other incidents to push his political agenda. Its detracts a great deal from his credibility as a researcher. The structure of many of his studies have been criticized in the past.